Continuing to Struggle with SPS

[aarbutina]

So yeah, it’s another one of those posts, even though every time I read one of these I think to myself “here’s another one”.

So here’s the deal, I have been struggling to keep acropora alive in my 90 gallon tank for a while now, but what I do find a bit odd it the of the most motiporas seem to do just fine. Maybe it’s that they are heartier, I’m not sure. I also don’t seem to have any issues with other species like acans, chalices, favias, zoas, euphillia, etc. As of SPS though if I put a montipora into my tank it did well and it would grow.

Recently however I have hit a bad patch and some of my montis don’t apear to be thriving the same what that they were. I have a frag if GB Seven Heavens that over grew it’s frag plug in a couple of months. Then all of a sudden it looks beat up and the polyps aren’t extending like they used to. On the other hand I have some pieces that don’t appear to be impacted at all.

Now in all fairness I have been having some issues with my alkalinity that may be causing a lot of my issues. Long story short my doser wasn’t working and I needed to dose by hand which cause a bit of fluctuation in my levels. Yes I know fluctuations are bad.

During the same time frame I added the diffusers to my XR15 and didn’t increase my intensity to counter balance the decrease in PAR. Which is actually when I’m a tweaked last night.

Typically one things that if corals aren’t getting enough light that the will brown out. Put is it possible that having your light intensity way to low would cause a coral to starve and present as in in this picture?

The polyps are pulled in very tight and the tips are showing signs of stress.

For a little bit of background I am currently running my tank at an alk in the 7.6 dKh range. I have 0 detectable nitrates of phosphates. My CA is a little high and I am working to bring it down (it’s around 500 ppm) and my Mg is at approximately 1400 ppm. Also the tank has been running for almost two years at this point.

Flow is provided by 2 mp40 which alternate every six hours between reef crest and constant speed.

Lighting is provided my 4 XR 15 (with diffusers) running the AB+ schedule at close max intensity for 6 hours per day with a three hour ramp up in either side (or a 1.5 hour ramp to nearly max followed another 1.5 hour ramp to max this is more for color profile). I also supplement with two coral+ t5 bulbs that run for 1 hour during the middle of the day. When I measure the PAR yestester day I was hitting a little under 200 at mid way down in the tank so I bumped that up to be hitting closer to 250ish.

Thoughts, opinions, the struggle is real!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Why are your nutrients undetectable? Are you carbon dosing, using gfo, zeolite etc?

 

[marlinmon]

That alk is pretty low imo. Could be an issue with sps. What’s definitely a long term issue with sps coloration is the undetectable po4 and no3. You’ll have to do something about that, but short term it seems to me you have another underlying issue hurting the sps. My guess is alk swings

 

[aarbutina]

Why are your nutrients undetectable? Are you carbon dosing, using gfo, zeolite etc?

Nope no carbon dosing, Zeo, Gfo. Just chaeto I’m the five. But I only run the lights on that for 4 hours a day. I just knocked it back to three

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

My alk swings from 7.9-6.9 everyday and it doesn’t bother my sps. As soon as I got rid of the gfo and biopellets and nopox my acros began to thrive.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Nope no carbon dosing, Zeo, Gfo. Just chaeto I’m the five. But I only run the lights on that for 4 hours a day. I just knocked it back to three

Maybe put your skimmer on a timer or get rid of the chaeto for awhile.

 

[CoralWealth]

do you have a full tank shot? it will help showing where the coral is placed, what your rocks look like, what your other corals look like, etc.

Also how stable do you keep your alk and how often do you test it? Also, what are you doing for RO/DI?

What I would do if I was you, is feed the fish a good amount and keep alk steady at whatever level you want. 7, 8, 9, etc. If you are not using gfo, carbon dosing or anything you do not worry about your nutrient levels much at all if you are feeding your fish a good amount unless they are too high and you have a lot of algae which it sounds like is not the case. I personally keep mine around 7 like natural sea water but obviously people have success with SPS at different alk levels. You just need to keep it very stable for great success. I would also stop changing stuff. I used to change stuff a lot in the beginning and it always hurt my tank. I have a very simple setup now and barely change anything and I am getting my best growth and color yet

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Looks like flatworms are all over the coral base and rack. But they just look blue from the light I am guessing? Check and make sure you don't have a huge explosion of red planaira because they will sit direct on top of corals and kill them off slowly.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

But that could just be a wierd trick the camera is playing. Also check to make sure your potassium is not very low for some wierd reason.

Imo if cheato if being used and your not using any other filter methods or media and your feeding good food daily then you don't have to worry about too low of nutrients. The cheato should die off before your coral look like that.

 

[rc1626]

It sounds like you're going in the right direction thought wise. I might get your alk up to around 8.0 just to give you a little wiggle room for inaccuracies in testing. Increasing the intensity of the lights was good but maybe too fast if you didn't acclimate over a period of time. Increasing nutrients would be ok as well and could be tackled in a couple of ways. Dosing no3 and po4, taking your skimmer off line, removing your macro algae or a combination of these. Any algae issues in your system right now? As said above if algae is growing then there are nutrients available but maybe not enough.
I'd say the biggest thing for you to do right now after the changes you've made is try to keep everything as stable as possible moving forward.
Good luck!

 

[Scorpius]

Nothing wrong with your alkalinity. Dont change it. Its within range. Changing your alkalinity with already stressed corals will kill them.

 

[HB AL]

Check levels of stray voltage. I have a mixed reef tank and back in may or so I noticed my acros where not looking right, loosing color, polyps retracted, and some started to suffer from stn, now only the acros were suffering, everything else was fine. I tested, tested, tested, examined pumps and such, wracking my brain on what it could be, then a couple weeks later I went to kill some aiptasia and felt a slight shock. I got my voltmeter out and man it showed some current flowing. Had my wife unplug pumps one at a time and found the culprit. The very next day the acros that usually had polyps out during the day had them out, the survivors were all back to there normal selves within a month. Just wanted that idea out there.

 

[marlinmon]

Nothing wrong with your alkalinity. Dont change it. Its within range. Changing your alkalinity with already stressed corals will kill them.

He won't be able to keep alk that low if his nutrients go up, will he?

 

[Scorpius]

He won't be able to keep alk that low if his nutrients go up, will he?

I'd rather have him brown his coral out than have tissue loss. I've ran high and low nutrients with alkalinity around 7.5 dkh. I have major issues 8 dkh and higher no matter my nutrients. I'm a believer in running nsw.

 

[reefwiser]

Why are you running the T5's for only and hour they should be on for at least 8 hours. I would also start feeding your corals at least twice a week with coral food like Benereef

 

[markalot]

Sorry, this is a little long winded but your pain sounds all to familiar so hopefully this can help.

I run at 6.5KH, usually lower by accident. My success comes from always targeting low Alk and slightly underdosing. Ideally I could stay at 7KH but the acros like this regime so much that every time I get close to 7 growth increases and sucks Alk back down again. Acros can grow EXTREMELY fast in lower Alk, I would hate to think what I would have to do if these things grew faster. Stability, flow, food regulates growth IMO.

So before I give my usual advice the disclaimer is this: Every tank is different, and the age of the tank matters as well. You have to temper any advice you get with what you are trying to do and what corals are in your tank. I run natural to low Alk which my acros love. I can't grow zoas at all, they get mad and wither away. Is it the low Alk? No idea, but here I'm focused on acros so this is what I base my advice on.

I try and run Alk near natural levels because it gives me more room for error. Acropora are much more forgiving at 7KH than they are at 8 and above. Acros also seem oblivious to rapid KH changes as long as the change doesn't take Alk above natural levels ... 6.5 is what I use here just to be safe. So I can raise Alk from 5.8 to 6.5 in a single dose, no issue. Try that to go from 7 to 8 and you will see some stress. 8 to 9 ... lots of death. But it DOES depends on the overall health of the coral, which can lead to different acros behaving differently either because they are more forgiving or because they are healthier.

Acros are, unfortunately, different from every other SPS. Acros also have this bad habit of reacting 1 or 2 weeks after something bad happens, which leads to more changes, which leads to more bad things in another 2 weeks. The fact that the montis are now stressed is worrisome and it appears to be Alk related, probably an Alk spike. The doser needs replaced quickly, you will not be able to keep most acros with hand dosing unless you are extremely accurate and can keep swings below .5 KH. Again, if your Alk is down near 6.5 or 7 this might work, but don't expect super healthy corals doing this. You are hand dosing and messing with your lights ... I would be shocked if you didn't lose most of your acros.

I would also respectfully make sure that whoever is making recommendations, including me, can show a long term history of success keeping Acropora using the techniques they recommend. I know, it sounds pretty rude, but you will get a lot of opposing advice and if you really want to keep these silly acros you need to at least understand what it requires and what to expect. :) I have only been in the hobby since 2012 and my success with Acros goes back about 2 years. Prior to that is was horrible, basically because I did not understand what stability meant. I try and document every mistake, every loss and what I think the cause was. You can check out my thread, the real recovery starts here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/marks-150-gallon-sps-heavy-reef.199807/page-6#post-3840756

I still made (and I bet I'm not done doing dumb things) a few mistakes after this and lost a few acros, but each mistake is a result of me doing something really dumb. The latest was not testing calcium every month as I recommend doing. I base all 2 part dosing on the Alk test, which is how it should be done. Calcium should be tested regularly because dosers aren't perfect and over time can cause issues. Well in this case after 6 months of only testing Alk my calcium dropped below 300 and only then did some acros start to show stress. I lost a beautiful SSC like acro and 3/4 of my Lokani. Once corrected the tank was able to pick right back up, thankfully.

Ok, hopefully this helps. Either it makes you think twice about growing acros or a lightbulb goes off and this will become much easier in the future. Good luck!

 

[CoralWealth]

Sorry, this is a little long winded but your pain sounds all to familiar so hopefully this can help.

I run at 6.5KH, usually lower by accident. My success comes from always targeting low Alk and slightly underdosing. Ideally I could stay at 7KH but the acros like this regime so much that every time I get close to 7 growth increases and sucks Alk back down again. Acros can grow EXTREMELY fast in lower Alk, I would hate to think what I would have to do if these things grew faster. Stability, flow, food regulates growth IMO.

So before I give my usual advice the disclaimer is this: Every tank is different, and the age of the tank matters as well. You have to temper any advice you get with what you are trying to do and what corals are in your tank. I run natural to low Alk which my acros love. I can't grow zoas at all, they get mad and wither away. Is it the low Alk? No idea, but here I'm focused on acros so this is what I base my advice on.

I try and run Alk near natural levels because it gives me more room for error. Acropora are much more forgiving at 7KH than they are at 8 and above. Acros also seem oblivious to rapid KH changes as long as the change doesn't take Alk above natural levels ... 6.5 is what I use here just to be safe. So I can raise Alk from 5.8 to 6.5 in a single dose, no issue. Try that to go from 7 to 8 and you will see some stress. 8 to 9 ... lots of death. But it DOES depends on the overall health of the coral, which can lead to different acros behaving differently either because they are more forgiving or because they are healthier.

Acros are, unfortunately, different from every other SPS. Acros also have this bad habit of reacting 1 or 2 weeks after something bad happens, which leads to more changes, which leads to more bad things in another 2 weeks. The fact that the montis are now stressed is worrisome and it appears to be Alk related, probably an Alk spike. The doser needs replaced quickly, you will not be able to keep most acros with hand dosing unless you are extremely accurate and can keep swings below .5 KH. Again, if your Alk is down near 6.5 or 7 this might work, but don't expect super healthy corals doing this. You are hand dosing and messing with your lights ... I would be shocked if you didn't lose most of your acros.

I would also respectfully make sure that whoever is making recommendations, including me, can show a long term history of success keeping Acropora using the techniques they recommend. I know, it sounds pretty rude, but you will get a lot of opposing advice and if you really want to keep these silly acros you need to at least understand what it requires and what to expect. :) I have only been in the hobby since 2012 and my success with Acros goes back about 2 years. Prior to that is was horrible, basically because I did not understand what stability meant. I try and document every mistake, every loss and what I think the cause was. You can check out my thread, the real recovery starts here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/marks-150-gallon-sps-heavy-reef.199807/page-6#post-3840756

I still made (and I bet I'm not done doing dumb things) a few mistakes after this and lost a few acros, but each mistake is a result of me doing something really dumb. The latest was not testing calcium every month as I recommend doing. I base all 2 part dosing on the Alk test, which is how it should be done. Calcium should be tested regularly because dosers aren't perfect and over time can cause issues. Well in this case after 6 months of only testing Alk my calcium dropped below 300 and only then did some acros start to show stress. I lost a beautiful SSC like acro and 3/4 of my Lokani. Once corrected the tank was able to pick right back up, thankfully.

Ok, hopefully this helps. Either it makes you think twice about growing acros or a lightbulb goes off and this will become much easier in the future. Good luck!

Great advice, I would listen to Mark :)

 

[aarbutina]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I have not had time to read through everything yet but I will very soon

 

[TexasTodd]

What test kits are you using for nitrate and phosphate? Have someone else run the tests too.

 

[TX_Punisher]

My alk swings from 7.9-6.9 everyday and it doesn’t bother my sps. As soon as I got rid of the gfo and biopellets and nopox my acros began to thrive.

Did you take the bio pellets off-line all at once or slowly? Since it is carbon dosing did you replace with another form of carbon dosing? Debating doing the same thing on mine.